Vanguard at Heaven's Door
by Forza del'Oscurit
Summary: SMT: Nocturne Chronicle post-game. Raidou, spoilers for True Demon ending. Space and time are now relative to their own annihilation, and Raidou has been left waiting for a battle he can never win. Thoughts on separation, and the importance of ideology.


Demons were not unfamiliar clients. Not common, but they made for a lucrative business in the worlds lingering just outside mortal attention. So Raidou approached this one as he would any other customer, naming the price on his head and asking for the one on others.

Then the world collapsed.

All causality eroded in the span of a single fist, their forms held up by the arms of a lone darkness' will. In this land of demons and fiends, one boy shattered the last pillar they could pray to; Kagutsuchi's light, fashioned into a sacrificial pyre by the one chosen to birth a new world. And with that pyre the body of a demon became immutable to time's march, his demon heart persevering under the prince of lies' shadow.

_"Though I may perish, your soul will never be at ease."_

Raidou's name is not included in that curse.

_"...The final hour is imminent. Darkness shall face justice in the last battle..."_

Gotou is fearful. He has never felt the cat tremble atop his shoulder, or seen its fur so raised; Raidou's name was included in that _order_.

_"Because of your transgressions—"_ Kagutsuchi's final vows are lost on his ears, swallowed by the scant degrees of separation between him and his client. Time crumbles as their world is shunted from the cycle, cut off. Immersed in the darkness beyond linear thought, the Amala Universe's dumping ground.

He cannot stay long.

They are delivered by the hand of a demon, out from that endless womb and into the boy's black kingdom. In the end, which boy did it? The one who gave his heart up to be a demon of darkness, or the one that smashed his light and discarded godhood for power? He can only empty his words into Gotou's fur, and be appalled at the cat's silence.

Atop a mountain of would-be mothers the Demi-Fiend stands, all their Reasons cast into his new power of darkness. Effortless he reigns over the chaos, uncaring for the Great Will's designs. It is unnerving, to watch him shrug his shoulders at the old man's words and not for a moment even _care_ who he is speaking to.

Lucifer must understand the Demi-Fiend's perspective. In an instant all pretenses are cast aside, illusions relegated back to the world of time as the Great Will's greatest error rises up to give this leveled world Reason. Kagutsuchi has been buried for the battle, and Lucifer's call answered.

For an instant Raidou catches reverence or respect on the boy's mouth, and then all that too is cast away for bucking snarls and curling claws.

_"Move over, Demon King! There's a new lord in town!"_

And Raidou knows then, that there can be no religion for this boy. He is servant to no law, not even Lucifer's, and their association will threaten Raidou's own station. His life and work.

So Raidou spares himself the satisfaction of violence, and slinks back into Amala's folds. He knows of where dark has gathered now, and that is enough. Kuzunoha sees the flood of eyes that chase him back through the time stream, diverting him along its whimsical paths until he stands in his own universe. His own world.

Raidou's first thought is to oil his sword. Running the cloth in measured strokes, until the steel binds light in thick riveting bands along its edge, casting them out like cannon fire to the shadows.

He will wait here, dewy ferns leaving moisture on his sleeves. Cross-legged on Shinoda's doorstep, gutting his gun's innards with cleaning supplies. Sunlight licks at the chill morning, catches Raidou waiting for the Herald's inevitable words. For the nightmare on legs that will unwaveringly draw itself across the Amala Universe, sinking one world and the next into decimation.

Waiting for the little boy who gleefully hooked footballs—_"Soccer,"_ Naoki lashes back—across the broad of his sneakers and pounded them on bewildered Oni.

"We have set our own path." Gotou murmurs, claws sliding over Kuzunoha's cape. "And he his. Stand for what you believe in, Jouhei."

He is waiting to kill that boy. Or to _see_ if that's possible. Jouhei is not certain whether he is the Great Will's subservient or that of the Yatagarasu's, or if they are one in the same. But he is not Jouhei; he is Raidou Kuzunoha XIV, and a Kuzunoha serves what law he can find. This world may quake and die of its own accord, and Raidou will be sent to the real front of this fresh war. He could, if he felt so inclined, rest at the rearguard with Michael and the gods of law, wait for the fiends to pile at their gates and march on their holy land.

If it comes to this, Raidou will not stand there. He cannot win this battle, no matter how it unfolds; so he will accept his fate boldly, to be the vanguard at heaven's door, and charge onward into Lucifer's laughing mouth.

The least he can do is drag Naoki to hell with him.

Anxiety is an unavoidable consequence. The Devil Summoner allows himself to shudder, if only because that luxury will be gone tomorrow, or the year after.

"_Whenever—_" Breath scourges the air, burning the early morning cold. "—it happens. Whatever happens, happens."

Raidou sets his eyes to the horizon, the fog coalescing as Inari come alive with tangerine fur and husky breaths. They shake the stone from their shoulders as Yatagarasu's will plucks itself like a spring lotus from the shrine well's waters.

The well, like so many battles to come, is empty.


End file.
